A typical pair of eyeglasses includes a pair of lenses or a single shield mounted to a frame that may include rims around the lenses; a brow bar; a bridge piece connecting the inner ends of the rims; and two temple pieces attached to the outer ends of the rims for resting the glasses on the user. Lenses are typically mounted to the eyeglass frame by a screw or other fastening device that tightens the rim around the lens. In the conventional configuration, the screw must be removed before the lens may be removed. The screw is often small and identifying the size and type of screw can require the user to strain his or her eyes. Removing the screw requires that the user have a screw driver or other tool that fits the particular screw in that pair of eyewear. Users will often not have the proper screwdriver. If the screw is broken or stripped, the user must then find a suitable replacement screw. This is inconvenient for the user as different eyeglasses use different kinds of screws which may have different head types and sizes. These different screws will often not work in different pairs of eyeglasses or with different screwdrivers. Additionally, if the screw breaks while in the glasses, the user may have difficulty removing the broken screw. Users may also desire to change lenses while wearing the glasses to accommodate different lighting conditions. Mounting lenses to the frame using screws can make this process highly inconvenient for the user.
Recently, prescription lenses have been developed with notches to make them interchangeable in brow bar designs if desired. This requires a forcing of the brow bar to go over the notches in the lenses. This technique can be quite cumbersome to work with in both the insertion and removal of the lenses.
More recently, to overcome these lens removal challenges, eyewear having magnetic coupling systems for eyeglass lenses has been developed. Eyewear having this configuration may have magnets attached on an inner portion of a rim that are releasably coupled to attracting magnets on the edges of lenses. The lenses having such magnets may be inserted into frames having various rim configurations such as winged rims on “blade”-style frames or full rims that can completely enclose the lenses. Due to the releasable magnetic coupling system, the lenses are easily removable, providing for rapid interchangeability of lenses having corresponding magnets into frames having magnets adapted to magnetically attach to the lenses. In this manner, lenses of different shades and colors and designs may be used with one or multiple frames.
Full rim configurations have conventionally included a stepped interior surface providing a mechanical stop for the lens when inserted. This requires the lens to be inserted from either the front or the back, as opposed to being slid into the frame from the side as in blade-style frames. The lenses for use in the full rim configurations have magnets around their perimeters, which due to the transparency of the lenses, may be visible upon insertion into the frames in these configurations.
It may be desirable to provide other implementations of full rim eyeglasses for magnetic coupling systems.